The Red Barn Collective story started on a rural highway in Iowa, more than 50 years ago.
My grandmother looked out at the endless fields and asked my grandfather—an ad man from Madison Avenue—why barns were always painted red.
He didn’t know. But that didn’t stop him. He launched into a detailed explanation about how farmers painted barns red so they wouldn’t lose their way home among the crops. It was delivered with such conviction, such rhythm, that it felt like fact. My grandmother believed him. For several miles, at least. Then she remembered who she was married to.
In our family, that became known as “red barning”: telling a story so well it convinces, even without a single statistic to back it up. Which is, when you think about it, how most of life works. We like to believe we’re persuaded by the charts, the data, the footnotes. But really—it’s the telling. It’s the image of a farmer, lost in a sea of corn, looking for a red barn on the horizon. You can see it. You can remember it. And that’s why we built an agency around it:
Because a story that sticks is more powerful than a hundred that don’t.
ABOUT US
We’re small but efficient.
Red Barn Collective began after 20 years in the agency world showed us that you can do a lot more with a lot less. We could shift our focus to the work and away from massive pitch decks, countless hours spent honing brand manifestos no one would read, and layers of creative bureaucracy.
People drive the process.
A benefit to staying small is that you can be flexible. We don’t have a trademarked process with a clever name that we pitch to each client as the next creative revolution. We just listen. Listen to how you like to work, what you need, and who you are. That’s it. We’re here to guide and advise, but we left our egos at home.
It’s not rocket science.
And we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, either. The reason we focus on the power of stories is that they work. The same reason they resonate today is the same reason they resonated when they were drawings on caves. We tap into the well-honed tools of crafting a narrative and apply it to your business.
B2B. B2C. B2P
Red Barn Collective, collectively, has more than two decades experience in advertising, internal communications, and journalism. We’ve served clients across a variety of industries from insurance to fashion to snack chips. And here’s what we learned: At their core, they’re all the same. The messaging changes, but it’s always about connecting your business with the people you’re here to serve. And that’s what we do.
Working with Red Barn Collective means tapping into a network of seasoned creatives, scaled to fit your business and your specific needs.
Amy Goran
Founder, Creative Director
You don’t need to spend hours searching freelancer platforms or commit to massive contracts with a big agency. As Creative Director, I’ll build a right-sized team, hand-picked to support your objectives. Kind of like a really cool heist movie montage.
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